“Who slew this beast, good my sirs?” he inquired.
Jillo spoke: “My noble master, the squire Eudoric Dambertson here. He is the hero who hath brought this accursed beast to book.”
“Be that sooth?” said the man to Eudoric.
“Well, ah,” said Eudoric, “I must not claim much credit for the deed.”
“But ye were the slayer, yea? Then, sir, ye are under arrest.”
“What? But wherefore?”
“Ye shall see.” From his garments, the stranger produced a length of cord with knots at intervals. With this he measured the dragon from nose to tail. Then the man stood up again.
“To answer your question, on three grounds: imprimis, for slaying a dragon out of lawful season; secundus, for slaying a dragon below the minimum size permitted; and tertius, for slaying a female dragon, which is protected the year round.”
“You say this is a female?”
“Aye, ’tis as plain as the nose on your face.”
“How does one tell with dragons?”
“Know, knave, that the male hath small horns behind the eyes, the which this specimen patently lacks.”
“Who are you anyway?” demanded Eudoric.
“Senior game warden Voytsik of Prath, at your service. My credentials.” The man fingered his medallion. “Now, show me your licenses, pray!”
“Licenses?” said Eudoric blankly.
“Hunting licenses, oaf!”
“None told us that such were required, sir,” said Jillo.
“Ignorance of the law is no pretext; ye should have asked. That makes four counts of illegality.”
Eudoric said, “But why—why in the name of the God and Goddess—”
“Pray, swear not by your false, heretical deities.”
“Well, why should you Pathenians wish to preserve these monstrous reptiles?”
“Imprimis, because their hides and other parts have commercial value, which would perish were the whole race extirpated. Secundus, because they help to maintain the balance of nature by devouring the giant snails, which otherwise would issue forth nightly from the forest in such numbers as to strip bare our crops, orchards, and gardens and reduce our folk to hunger. And tertius, because they add a picturesque element to the landscape, thus luring foreigners to visit our land and spend their gold therein. Doth that explanation satisfy you?”
Eudoric had a fleeting thought of assaulting the stranger and either killing him or rendering him helpless while Eudoric and Jillo salvaged their prize. Even as he thought, three more tough-looking fellows, clad like Voytsik and armed with crossbows, rode out of the trees and formed up behind their leader.
“Now come along, ye two,” said Voytsik.
“Whither?” asked Eudoric.
“Back to Liptai. On the morrow, we take the stage to Velitchovo, where your case will be tried.”
“Your pardon, sir; we take the what?”
“The stagecoach.”
“What’s that, good my sir?”
“By the only God, ye must come from a barbarous land indeed! Ye shall see. Now come along, lest we be benighted in the woods.”
The stagecoach made a regular round trip between Liptai and Velitchovo thrice a sennight. Jillo made the journey sunk in gloom, Eudoric kept busy viewing the passing countryside and, when opportunity offered, asking the driver about his occupation: pay, hours, fares, the cost of the vehicle, and so forth. By the time the prisoners reached their destination, both stank mightily because they had had no chance to wash the dragon’s blood from their blood-soaked garments.
As they neared the capital, the driver whipped up his team to a gallop. They rattled along the road beside the muddy river Pshora until the river made a bend. Then they thundered across the planks of a bridge.
Velitchovo was a real city, with a roughly paved main street and an onion-domed, brightly colored cathedral of the One God. In a massively timbered municipal palace, a bewhiskered magistrate asked, “Which of you two aliens truly slew the beast?”
“The younger, hight Eudoric,” said Voytsik.
“Nay, Your Honor, ’twas I!” said Jillo.
“That is not what he said when we came upon them red-handed from their crime,” said Voytsik. “This lean fellow plainly averred that his companion had done the deed, and the other denied it not.”
“I can explain that,” said Jillo. “I am the servant of the most worshipful squire Eudoric Dambertson of Arduen. We set forth to slay the creature, thinking this a noble and heroic deed that should redound to our glory on earth and our credit in Heaven. Whereas we both had a part in the act, the fatal stroke was delivered by your humble servant here. Howsomever, wishing like a good servant for all the glory to go to my master, I gave him the full credit, not knowing that this credit should be counted as blame.”
“What say ye to that, Master Eudoric?” asked the judge.
“Jillo’s account is essentially true,” said Eudoric. “I must, however, confess that my failure to slay the beast was due to mischance and not want of intent.”
“Methinks they utter a pack of lies to confuse the court,” said Voytsik. “I have told Your Honor of the circumstances of their arrest, whence ye may judge how matters stand.”
The judge put his fingertips together. “Master Eudoric,” he said, “ye may plead innocent, or as incurring sole guilt, or as guilty in company with your servant. I do not think that you can escape some guilt, since Master Jillo, being your servant, acted under your orders. Ye be therefore responsible for his acts and at the very least a factor of dragocide.”
“What happens if I plead innocent?” said Eudoric.
“Why, in that case, an’ ye can find an attorney, ye shall be tried in due course. Bail can plainly not be allowed to foreign travelers, who can so easily slip through the law’s fingers.”
“In other words, I needs must stay in jail until my case comes up. How long will that take?”
“Since our calendar be crowded, ’Twill be at least a year and a half. Whereas, an’ ye plead guilty, all is settled in a trice.”
“The I plead sole guilt,” said Eudoric.
“But, dear Master—” wailed Jillo.
“Hold thy tongue, Jillo. I know what I do.”
The judge chuckled. “An old head on young shoulders, I perceive. Well, Master Eudoric. I find you guilty on all four counts and amerce you the wonted fine, which is one hundred marks on each count.”
“Four hundred marks!” exclaimed Eudoric. “Our total combined wealth at this moment amounts to fourteen marks and thirty-seven pence, plus some items of property left with Master Kasmar in Liptai.”
“So, ye’ll have to serve out the corresponding prison term, which comes to one mark a day—unless ye can find someone to pay the balance of the fine for you. Take him away, jailer.”
“But, Your Honor!” cried Jillo, “what shall I do without my noble master? When shall I see him again?”
“Ye may visit him any day during the regular visiting hours. It were well if ye brought him somewhat to eat, for our prison fare is not of the daintiest.”
At the first visiting hour, when Jillo pleaded to be allowed to share Eudoric’s sentence, Eudoric said, “Be not a bigger fool than thou canst help! I took sole blame so that ye should be free to run mine errands; whereas had I shared my guilt with you, we had both been mewed up here. Here, take this letter to Doctor Raspiudus; seek him out and acquaint him with our plight. If he be in sooth a true friend of our own Doctor Baldonius, belike he’ll come to our rescue.”
Doctor Raspiudus was short and fat, with a bushy white beard to his waist. “Ah, dear old Baldonius!” he cried in good Helladic. “I mind me of when we were lads together at the Arcane College of Saalingen University! Doth he still string verses together?”
“Aye, that he does,” said Eudoric.
“Now, young man, I daresay that your chiefest desire is to get out of this foul hole, is’t not?”
“That, and to recover our three remain
ing animals and other possessions left behind in Liptai, and to depart with the two square yards of dragon hide that I’ve promised to Doctor Baldonius, with enough money to see us home.”
“Methinks all these matters were easily arranged, young sir. I need only your power of attorney to enable me to go to Liptai, recover the objects in question and return hither to pay your fine and release you. Your firearm is, I fear, lost to you, having been confiscated by the law.”
“’twere of little use without a new supply of the magical powder,” said Eudoric. “Your plan sounds splendid. But, sir, what do you get out of this?”
The enchanter rubbed his hands together. “Why, the pleasure of favoring an old friend—and also the chance to acquire a complete dragon hide for my own purposes. I know somewhat of Baldonius’ experiments. As he can do thus and so with two yards of dragon, I can surely do more with a score.”
“How will you obtain this dragon hide?”
“By now the foresters will have skinned the beast and salvaged the other parts of monetary worth, all of which will be put up at auction for the benefit of the kingdom. And I shall bid them in.” Raspiudus chuckled. “When the other bidders know against whom they bid, I think not that they’ll force the price up very far.”
“Why can’t you get me out of here now and then go to Liptai?”
Another chuckle. “My dear boy, first I must see that all is as ye say in Liptai. After all, I have only your word that ye be in sooth the Eudoric Dambertson of whom Baldonius writes. So bide ye in patience a few days more. I’ll see that ye be sent better aliment than the slop they serve here. And now, pray, your authorization. Here are pen and ink.”
To keep from starvation, Jillo got a job as a paver’s helper and worked in hasty visits to the jail during his lunch hour. When a fortnight had passed without word from Doctor Raspiudus, Eudoric told Jillo to go to the wizard’s home for an explanation.
“They turned me away at the door,” reported Jillo. “They told me that the learned doctor had never heard of us.”
As the import of this news sank in, Eudoric cursed and beat the wall in his rage. “That filthy, treacherous he-witch! He gets me to sign that power of attorney; then, when he has my property in his grubby paws, he conveniently forgets about us! By the God and Goddess, if ever I catch him—”
“Here, here, what’s all this noise?” said the jailer. “Ye disturb the other prisoners.”
When Jillo explained the cause of his master’s outrage, the jailer laughed. “Why, everyone knows that Raspiudus is the worst skinflint and treacher in Velitchovo! Had ye asked me, I’d have warned you.”
“Why has none of his victims slain him?” asked Eudoric.
“We are a law-abiding folk, sir. We do not permit private persons to indulge their feuds on their own, and we have some most ingenious penalties for homicide.”
“Mean ye,” said Jillo, “that amongst you Pathenians a gentleman may not avenge an insult by the gage of battle?”
“Of course not! We are not bloodthirsty barbarians.”
“Ye mean there are no true gentlemen amongst you,” sniffed Jillo.
“Then, Master Tiolkhof,” said Eudoric, calming himself by force of will, “am I stuck here for a year or more?”
“Aye, but ye may get time off for good behavior at the end—three or four days, belike.”
When the jailer had gone, Jillo said, “When ye get out, Master, ye must needs uphold your honor by challenging this runagate to the trial of battle, to the death.”
Eudoric shook his head. “Heard you not what Tiolkhof said? They deem dueling barbarous and boil the duelists in oil, or something equally entertaining. Anyway, Raspiudus could beg off on grounds of age. We must, instead, use what wits the Holy Couple gave us. I wish now that I’d sent you back to Liptai to fetch our belongings and never meddled with his rolypoly sorcerer.”
“True, but how could ye know, dear Master? I should probably have bungled the task in any case, what with my ignorance of the tongue and all.”
After another fortnight, King Vladmor of Pathenia died. When his son Yogor ascended the throne, he declared a general amnesty for all crimes less than murder. Thus Eudoric found himself out in the street again, but without horse, armor, weapons, or money beyond a few marks.
“Jillo,” he said that night in their mean little cubicle, “we must needs get into Raspiudus’ house somehow. As we saw this afternoon, ’tis a big place with a stout, high wall around it.”
“An’ ye could get a supply of that black powder, we could blast a breach in the wall.”
“But we have no such stuff, nor means of getting it, unless we raid the royal armory, which I do not think we can do.”
“Then how about climbing a tree near the wall and letting ourselves down by ropes inside the wall from a convenient branch?”
“A promising plan, if there were such an overhanging tree. But there isn’t, as you saw as well as I when we scouted the place. Let me think. Raspiudus must have supplies borne into his stronghold from time to time. I misdoubt his wizardry is potent enough to conjure foodstuffs out of air.”
“Mean ye that we should gain entrance as, say, a brace of chicken farmers with eggs to sell?”
“Just so. But nay, that won’t do. Raspiudus is no fool. Knowing of this amnesty that enlarged me, he’ll be on the watch for such a trick. At least, so should I be, in his room, and I credit him with no less wit than mine own.…I have it! What visitor would logically be likely to call upon him now, whom he will not have seen for many a year and whom he would hasten to welcome?”
“That I know not, sir.”
“Who would wonder what had become of us and, detecting our troubles in his magical scryglass, would follow upon our track by uncanny means?”
“Oh, ye mean Doctor Baldonius!”
“Aye. My whiskers have grown nigh as long as his since last I shaved. And we’re much of a size.”
“But I never heard that your old tutor could fly about on an enchanted broomstick, as some of the mightiest magicians are said to do.”
“Belike he can’t, but Doctor Raspiudus wouldn’t know that.”
“Mean ye,” said Jillo, “that ye’ve a mind to play Doctor Baldonius? Or to have me play him? The latter would never do.”
“I know it wouldn’t, good my Jillo. You know not the learned patter proper to wizards and other philosophers.”
“Won’t Raspiudus know you, sir? As ye say he’s a shrewd old villain.”
“He’s seen me but once, in that dark, dank cell, and that for a mere quarter hour. You he’s never seen at all. Methinks I can disguise myself well enough to befool him—unless you have a better notion.”
“Alack, I have none! Then what part shall I play?”
“I had thought of going in alone.”
“Nay, sir, dismiss the thought! Me let my master risk his mortal body and immortal soul in a witch’s lair without my being there to help him!”
“If you help me the way you did by touching off that firearm whilst our dragon was out of range—”
“Ah, but who threw the torch and saved us in the end? What disguise shall I wear?”
“Since Raspiudus knows you not, there’s no need for any. You shall be Baldonius’ servant, as you are mine.”
“Ye forget, sir, that if Raspiudus knows me not, his gatekeepers might. Forsooth, they’re likely to recall me because of the noisy protests I made when they barred me out.”
“Hm. Well, you’re too old for a page, too lank for a bodyguard, and too unlearned for a wizard’s assistant. I have it! You shall go as my concubine!”
“Oh, Heaven above, sir, not that! I am a normal man! I should never live it down!”
To the massive gate before Raspiudus’ house came Eudoric, with a patch over one eye, and his beard, uncut for a month, dyed white. A white wig cascaded down from under his hat. He presented a note, in a plausible imitation of Baldonius’ hand, to the gatekeeper:
Doctor Baldonius of Treveria
presents his compliments to his old friend and colleague Doctor Raspiudus of Velitchovo, and begs the favor of an audience to discuss the apparent disappearance of two young protégés of his.
A pace behind, stooping to disguise his stature, slouched a rouged and powdered Jillo in woman’s dress. If Jillo was a homely man, he made a hideous woman, least as far as his face could be seen under the headcloth. Nor was his beauty enhanced by the dress, which Eudoric had stitched together out of cheap cloth. The garment looked like what it was: the work of a rank amateur at dressmaking.
“My master begs you to enter,” said the gatekeeper.
“Why, dear old Baldonius!” cried Raspiudus, rubbing his hands together. “Ye’ve not changed a mite since those glad, mad days at Saalingen! Do ye still string verses?”
“Ye’ve withstood the ravages of time well yourself, Raspiudus,” said Eudoric, in an imitation of Baldonius’ voice.
“ ‘As fly the years, the geese fly north in spring; Ah, would the years, like geese, return awing!’”
Raspiudus roared with laughter, patting his paunch. “The same old Baldonius! Made ye that one up?”
Eudoric made a deprecatory motion. “I am a mere poetaster; but had not the higher wisdom claimed my allegiance, I might have made my mark in poesy.”
“What befell your poor eye?”
“My own carelessness in leaving a corner of a pentacle open. The demon got in a swipe of his claws ere I could banish him. But now, good Raspiudus, I have a matter to discuss whereof I told you in my note.”
“Yea, yea, time enow for that. Be ye weary from the road? Need ye baths? Aliment? Drink?”
“Not yet, old friend. We have but now come from Velitchovo’s best hostelry.”
“Then let me show you my house and grounds. Your lady…?”
“She’ll stay with me. She speaks nought but Treverian and fears being separated from me among strangers. A mere swineherd’s chick, but a faithful creature. At my age, that is of more moment than a pretty face.”
Presently, Eudoric was looking at his and Jillo’s palfreys and their sumpter mule in Raspiudus’ stables. Eudoric made a few hesitant efforts, as if he were Baldonius seeking his young friends, to inquire after their disappearance. Each time Raspiudus smoothly turned the question aside, promising enlightenment later.
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